Bachelet announces Chile presidential bid

Published March 27, 2013

Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile –  Former President Michelle Bachelet says she will run again for Chile's top office in November elections as the candidate of the country's center-left and communist party.

Bachelet returned to Chile on Wednesday after ending a two-year stint heading the U.N. women's agency in New York.

The former president told cheering supporters in a poor Santiago neighbhorhood that "I have taken the decision to be a candidate."

Bachelet is widely seen as the center-left opposition's only hope of winning the Nov. 17 presidential election.

Bachelet, 62, said that inequality is the main problem facing Chile.

Candidates must to be ready to tackle mounting social demands and frequent protests that troubled Bachelet during her 2006-2010 presidency and that have harried center-right President Sebastian Pinera even more.

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Armenian presidential candidates dispute vote

YEREVAN, Armenia –  Two presidential candidates in Armenia who lost to the incumbent are contesting the election results, saying they were unfair.

President Serge Sarkisian easily won a second five-year term in the Feb. 18 election with nearly 59 percent of the vote. American-born Raffi Hovanessian, who finished second with 37 percent, filed an appeal Monday in the Constitutional Court demanding the vote results be annulled.

Hovanessian, Armenia's first foreign minister after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, has called the election rigged, and declared himself the genuine winner. His supporters have held a series of rallies to back his demands.

Another of Sarkisian's six rivals, Andrias Gukasian, also contested the results Monday.

International monitors said the election "lacked competition," but noted improvements compared to the previous poll.

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